Nov012015

By Nicholas Carter, FGHL

This month at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya boils down to a joyous encounter with a medical center in the developing world where patients find reliable access to quality surgical services. Here, to a large degree, patients are spared the immense burden of death and misery associated with the myriad of conditions that can be cured or palliated by surgical procedures. Every short-term visitor will view Kijabe through the lens of prior experiences, and I reflect back to 10 months spent in Haiti as a medical student, where preventable deaths were a daily routine. I have seen here in Kijabe a model for expanding access to surgery with tremendous effect for patients and their families.

Oct222015

By Nicholas Kristof

LUCKNOW, India — What if there were a remedy that could save more children’s lives in the developing world than are claimed by malaria and AIDS combined?

A miracle substance that reduces ear infections while seeming to raise scores on I.Q. tests by several points? Available even in the most remote villages, requiring no electricity or refrigeration? Oh, and as long as we’re dreaming, let’s make it free.

Oct212015

By Greg Garrison

Jenny Dyer, a 1999 Samford University graduate, has become an important voice in promoting worldwide family planning.

Dyer, who has a Ph.D. in religious studies from Vanderbilt University and teaches health policy in the medical school there, serves as the executive director of Hope Through Healing Hands, a global health organization founded by physician and former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist.

With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hope Through Healing Hands advocates for continued and increased U.S. government support of family planning worldwide.

"We contribute more money to family planning than any other nation," Dyer said in a visit to Samford University on Tuesday, where she met with Vestavia Hills Baptist Church Pastor Gary Furr and several community leaders to discuss programs to assist women. Hope Through Healing Hands also works with UAB's Sparkman Center for Global Health to host events on global maternal and child health.

Oct152015

By Rev? Canon Grace Kaiso and Dr Ahmed RA Ragab

As men of faith, we share a deeply held conviction that all families – regardless of their religious beliefs – are entitled to lead healthy lives free from suffering and deprivation. But, tragically, an absence of basic family planning services deprives millions of people of this fundamental right every year.

More than 200 million women worldwide lack access to modern contraceptives – and when families are unable to control the timing and spacing of pregnancies, the cost can be measured in thousands of women’s and children’s lives lost.

Because of this influence, faith leaders worldwide have an unparalleled opportunity – indeed, a moral obligation – to prioritise conversations about family planning and close the contraception gap.

Oct082015

By Melinda Gates

Let’s begin with a hard truth: unplanned pregnancy is for many a matter of life and death. Every two minutes a woman dies due to pregnancy-related complications — a grim transformation of what should be one of the happiest times into one of the most dangerous.

Oct072015

By Senator Bill Frist, MD

It’s been an eventful year for Cuba since we last visited. The United States policy changes announced on Dec 17, 2014—the result of 18 months of negotiations—signified a new era for Cuba. On July 20 this year, the United States reopened its embassy in Havana which has been closed since 1961.

Oct012015

By Jenny Eaton Dyer, PhD

About 15 years ago, countries around the world agreed on Millennium Development Goals to tackle some of the biggest issues facing the developing world, among them HIV/AIDS, maternal health, education and gender equality.

While many evangelicals were slow to come to the table on these issues, a few faith leaders did take a stand, gradually leading their communities to become involved, with some significant results.

In 2015, HIV/AIDS hasn’t been eradicated, but the tide is turning, the numbers are declining and there is cause to take a moment and celebrate. There are other amazing victories in global health as well. Since 1990, the U.N. reports, progress has been made on many of the goals:

* The number of people living in extreme poverty has been cut in half.

* The number of out-of-school children has fallen by half.

* The under-5 mortality rate has dropped by half.

* Maternal mortality has nearly been cut in half.

We celebrate this good news while recognizing we still have a few miles to go before we can finish this fight. We must keep the faith for the millions who still are dying by mosquito bite, diarrhea, dirty water or a cold.

On Sept. 25, countries gathered at the U.N. General Assembly to agree to a new set of Sustainable Development Goals and targets for 2030. These goals encompass economic, social and environmental transformation for humanity and the planet, addressing prosperity, peace and partnership.

This is a real moment for the faith community to hit “refresh” and join this united front of governments, nonprofit organizations, institutions and foundations to finish the race. The time is ripe for all to come together with their leadership and lend a voice to help shape policy, affect legislation and join in the efforts — large and small — to meet these global health and development targets of 2030.

History has shown that this group can be one of the most effective when united toward a common goal. While the Barna Group showed that evangelicals, especially, were slow to come on board for HIV/AIDS in 2000, we know that once they did get involved, their leadership moved the needle.

This group rallied in support of increased U.S. government assistance during the Bush administration to create historic legislation, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. In 2002, only 50,000 people had access to anti-retroviral medication to fight HIV/AIDS. Today, over 14 million people have access to these lifesaving drugs, thanks to American tax dollars.

We hope to see the faith community similarly get behind funding for an area that we believe is a lynchpin for almost every single one of these Sustainable Development Goals: women’s health and women’s empowerment. If we can keep moms healthy, keep girls in school and provide women the resources to make good decisions on when to have children and how often to have children, poverty and hunger will decline, and good health, education and equal opportunities for women will grow.

Arguably the church, people of faith, should be at the helm of such sustainable changes. Religion is all about the care of widows, orphans and the refugee. The threads of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, call us to attend to vulnerable populations, the sick and the imprisoned.

We have the knowledge. We have the will. We need the hands, the feet and the voice of the body of Christ to act.

Our calling is for everyone to take a stand and lend a voice for these Sustainable Development Goals.

We look forward to one day celebrating our successes in saving lives, perhaps within our generation.

(Jenny Eaton Dyer is executive director of Hope Through Healing Hands in Nashville, Tenn. She is a lecturer in the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University.)

Sep282015

By Michael Gerson

Bill Gates is now focused on the eradication of malaria, and parasites everywhere have reason to fear.

There are, he tells me, two possible places to draw a line across Africa marking the next northward advance of malaria elimination. “If you want to get all of Zambia,” he explained, “you also have to get Katanga” (a portion of Congo where health services are weak). Clearing islands such as Papua New Guinea and Madagascar, he says, should be relatively easy. A new Gates Foundation report argues against malaria containment in favor of malaria elimination — a goal that has provoked skepticism even among some malaria experts. Gates wants to see the plasmodium at Appomattox.

The billionaire’s main contribution to global health is the manner in which he combines technology, aspiration, resources and rigor. It is the same approach that has chased the polio virus across the world to its redoubts in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Gates both drives and reflects a remarkable trend. Over the past 25 years, efforts to help the global poor have been massively ambitious and massively successful. More than a billion people have risen out of poverty. Tens of millions more are in school, or have been saved from infectious diseases. Child mortality was halved, then halved again. More than 9 million people are on AIDS treatment in Africa. It is now possible to set goals in a number of areas — malaria elimination, an AIDS-free generation, the end of extreme poverty — and not be dismissed as a crank.

Sep242015

By Amy Fogleman, RN

During the Why Christian? Conference in Minneapolis, MN many people were asked to record a short “audio selfie” that answers the following question: When you think of a moment of doubt or struggle, what person or experience has prompted you to ask deeper questions about your faith? How do these questions sustain you in your journey?

Sep212015

By Melinda Gates

Serviam. I will serve. That is the motto of Ursuline Academy, the Catholic high school I attended in Dallas, Texas. It was also the ethos of the Catholicism that I grew up with. I was taught — in school, in church, in my home — that service is a form of holiness, and I believe that the philanthropic foundation my husband and I run is the logical extension of this lesson.

Pope Francis has put the fight against poverty at the center of his papacy. His words and actions remind me of the strong link between faith and work. I am proud to stand with him as a member of the Church, joining the global community of people committed to improving life for “the least of these.” So many of the partners in this community are people of faith — many different faiths, I might add — and they express their faith in action. We are told in the Gospel of Mark not to hide our light under a bushel, but I find that many people who have never read Mark take seriously the injunction to give their light to all who are in the house.

One of the hallmarks of Pope Francis is that he listens, truly listens, to the poor. In the past 15 years, I’ve tried to do the same as I’ve sought to answer the hard questions about poverty — why are people poor and what are the best ways to help them lift themselves up? From those conversations and from the evidence, one thing I have learned is that it’s impossible to study poverty without studying the unique predicament of women and girls in societies around the world.

Women and girls are more likely to be poor, and more likely to suffer from the consequences of poverty, like ill health and the lack of education. So when the Pope talks about the fight against poverty, he is also talking about a better life for women and girls in particular.

And there’s more. Because women and girls are caretakers who give so much to their families and their communities, empowered women and girls are actually one of the best resources we have in the fight against poverty for everyone. When women and girls are healthy and educated and have the power to make decisions, the decisions they make build the foundations for a thriving future for the world. On this issue too, the Pope has been a champion, commenting specifically on gender inequality and the “scandal” of wage differences between men and women. Pope Francis is helping millions of people make the connection between women and girls and the fight against poverty.

I have decided to devote the rest of my life to fighting poverty and pursuing equality for women and girls. It is what my head and my heart tell me to do. It is how I can follow through on the promise I made as a girl at Ursuline Academy — to serve. In this era we are blessed — not only those of us who are Catholic, but all of us — to have Pope Francis to help us understand what it means to serve.